Can robots become self-sustaining by consuming other objects? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as a team of almost two dozen researchers investigated physical adaptations and survival methods that robots could use for growth and reproduction. This study has the potential to help researchers, engineers, and the public better understand physical processes that robots could use to ensure their survival, which comes when they are evolving behaviors through artificial intelligence.
For the study, the researchers examined how robots could survive and grow by consuming other robots or similar parts in their surroundings while also discarding broken parts, which is a new technique they call “Robot Metabolism”. To test their hypothesis, the researchers used a truss modular robot platform to demonstrate how robots can grow, adapt, and survive through consuming robot parts or other surrounding materials. In the end, the researchers demonstrated the platform could “grow” from two-dimensional to three-dimensional shapes by incorporating new parts into their systems.
"Robot Metabolism provides a digital interface to the physical world and allows AI to not only advance cognitively, but physically—creating an entirely new dimension of autonomy," said Dr. Martin Wyder, who is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington and lead author of the study. "Initially, systems capable of Robot Metabolism will be used in specialized applications such as disaster recovery or space exploration. Ultimately, it opens up the potential for a world where AI can build physical structures or robots just as it today writes or rearranges the words in your email."
Going forward, the researchers aspire to create a world where machines are autonomous and self-sustaining, capable of fixing themselves and adapting to any environment.
How will robots learn to survive by consuming other robots in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Science Advances, EurekAlert!
